tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73439851712064814992014-10-04T17:27:50.114-07:00No. 1 BusThe official blog of Gus Rancatore, auteur of Toscanini's Ice Cream in Cambridge, MA.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-43491218882698708152007-11-01T07:50:00.001-07:002007-11-01T07:53:57.243-07:00This Blog Has Moved to Tumblr<div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_SRqWYk_JON8/RynoR0Y5NwI/AAAAAAAAAFg/qVZeKQpr3DY/s1600-h/bus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_SRqWYk_JON8/RynoR0Y5NwI/AAAAAAAAAFg/qVZeKQpr3DY/s400/bus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127885043556497154" border="0" /></a><br /></div>At least experimentally, <a href="http://numberonebus.tumblr.com/">#1 Bus</a> is now to be found at <a href="http://numberonebus.tumblr.com/">http://numberonebus.tumblr.com/</a><br /><br />See you there!Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02095975112926228289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-30855347646805435452007-08-27T20:38:00.001-07:002007-08-27T20:38:20.212-07:00The end of summer in Central Square.First the foreign students and the athletes arrive. Then the first <br>year students. There are fewer parking spaces. MIT starts early and <br>we&#39;re in that happy period when packets of new arrivals zip around the <br>02139 internet, discovering Hi Fi Pizza and Economy Hardware. The <br>comic element includes the short-lived, but long-planned back to school <br>outfits. A number of the affluent East Asian female students dress up <br>for the first few days until the pointlessness of it settles in. A lot <br>of the new MIT guys have Space Camp t-shirts. It is a real place in <br>Huntsville, Alabama run by NASA. And there are also Nebraska Young <br>Scholar shirts and other goodies from weekend programs and summer <br>schools. The arrogant few wear austere shirts that say &quot;Science.&quot; You <br>are supposed to know that &quot;Science&quot; means Bronx High School of. I once <br>saw a kid wearing a Science varsity jacket. On his sleeve it said <br>&quot;Math Team.&quot; I was afraid.<p>If you&#39;ve been out of town then you should know Toscanini&#39;s is open <br>from 8AM to 11 PM. Every day. On Saturday and Sunday we serve <br>Thalia&#39;s Large Breakfast, but not this weekend. Because of the Labor <br>Day holiday we&#39;re going to Rhode Island to visit Dunkin Donut <br>prototypes. One of my favorite chefs is Stan Frankenthaler and he is <br>DD&#39;s very own Ferran Adria. New things are supposed to be coming our <br>way and you can visit a few stores and see the future.<p>The last time I checked DD&#39;s coffee cost more than Starbucks, and <br>wasn&#39;t as good. And while the new owners are planning to make billions <br>Dunkin&#39; Donuts doesn&#39;t let you tip their workers. Maybe the investment <br>groups are just going to divide all the money they get and share it <br>with all those hourly workers.<p>You can get Toscanini&#39;s delivered if you call Cinderella&#39;s Pizza. 617 <br>576-0280. The number of flavors they have is limited but their drivers <br>are heroic. We also sell to Nantucket Ice Cream on Straight Wharf, and <br>The Nut House in Provincetown. Provincetown also has the very nice <br>Angel Food and they sell our pints. We sell to most Whole Foods in New <br>England, including Portland, Maine. We sell to both Formaggio&#39;s. We <br>sell to Serene Chocolate near Harvard Square and we sell to Serenade <br>Chocolate in South Station. We sell to the two Biscuits and buy our <br>weekday baked goods from their main store at the intersection of Beacon <br>Street and Washington Street.<p>This is Sam Mehr&#39;s last week before returning to Rochester NY. He <br>studies at Eastman. He just made a wicked good Spicy Plum Sorbet. <br>Martin Gonzalez is not going back to Berklee. He&#39;s working on several <br>ice creams with pistachio nuts and a better Cinnamon. David Dow has <br>spent most of August playing with bourbon and black pepper. The <br>results have been good.<p>I spent part of the summer hang-gliding. It was a good vacation.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-6728554406336334012007-08-23T09:27:00.001-07:002007-08-23T09:27:23.752-07:00WBUR reports on Mass. Avenue construction OMG. A very good report on Cambridge&#39;s Little Dig or Big Fuckup or <br>whatever the ongoing comedy may be called. This article understates <br>the delays. After years of sidewalk supervising I&#39;m still confused <br>about whether there are two projects or one project, and whether any of <br>these projects is actually a city project.<p>I think there are or were two projects: reconstructing Mass. Avenue, <br>and rebuiliding the intersection of Mass. Avenue and Main Street, which <br>is Lafayette Square. The Lafayette Square project is certainly ten <br>years old. A single wonderful construction company is in charge the <br>entire craziness.<p>Construction Delays Drag Out<br>By Monica Brady-Myerov<p>Listen to story (Real Audio)<p>Jordy Yager<br>BOSTON, Mass - August 23, 2007 - Host Intro: Ahhh the sounds of summer.<p>(sound of trucks)<p>Summer construction that it. As the summer comes to an end, <br>construction on roads, bridges and sidewalks just seems to keep going <br>on and on. While we&#39;ve been paying attention to falling bridges and <br>leaking tunnels, there&#39;s another problem on Massachusetts roads and <br>highways: Construction is taking forever.<p>Almost half the highway projects now under construction in this state <br>are behind schedule. Things have gotten so bad, even the state now <br>concedes that construction is taking much, much too long. Next month a <br>new state task force will start trying to find ways to speed things up. <br>WBUR&#39;s Monica Brady-Myerov reports.<p>Text:<br>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: Orange construction barrels line parts of <br>Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge from Central Square to the Charles <br>River. Work to repave the road, redo the sidewalks and add trees <br>started three years ago this fall, when MIT professor Fred Moavenzedah <br>greeted a new class of freshmen. They&#39;re now about to become seniors, <br>but the Mass. Ave. project is only three-quarters complete. The delay <br>rankles Moanvenzedah, who runs MIT&#39;s Center for Construction Research <br>and Education.<p>FRED MOAVENZEDAH: This paving of this street could have been done in <br>less than 6 months rather than 3 years. Because it is a job that is <br>rather repetitious and they could have done it in 6 months if they had <br>put sufficient man power and equipment, day in day out night in night <br>out.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: The delays with repaving Mass Ave. are typical. A <br>WBUR analysis of Mass Highway statistics on its own website show that <br>43% of the road and highway projects in the construction phase are not <br>on time. And cost overruns on many projects cost taxpayers $30 million <br>dollars a year.<p>LOUISA PAIEWONSKY: We know that construction delays cost us money<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: Highway Commissioner Louisa Paiewonsky.<p>LOUISA PAIEWONSKY: But I think it&#39;s fair to say while there are often <br>good reasons for construction delays including environmental, or work <br>permit restrictions or utility delays that doesn&#39;t mean we find that <br>acceptable.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: The delays have gotten so bad that the new <br>transportation secretary is creating a construction streamlining task <br>force to ask designers, engineers and contractors how to get things <br>moving faster.<p>Excuses about the weather and the need to keep roads open while work is <br>being done don&#39;t account for all the problems, according to <br>construction experts. First, the cash flow is constantly interrupted, <br>says John Pourbaix executive director of Construction Industries of <br>Massachusetts, which represents construction companies.<p>JOHN POURBAIX: The state can&#39;t afford to pay the overtime. They are <br>putting contracts on limited budget that you can only perform so much <br>work over a period of time or contracts are stopped because they are <br>burning thru cash a little quicker than they had anticipated.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: In 2006 then Governor Mitt Romney didn&#39;t file a <br>transportation bond bill so as many as a hundred construction projects <br>stopped. This can drag projects out for years. The biggest project <br>underway now is the $300 million dollar reconstruction and widening of <br>nearly 14 miles of Route 128. It includes replacing 22 bridges. Many <br>parts are behind schedule including work at the 128/95 south <br>interchange in Canton and the overpass on Route 1 in Dedham.<p>Often contributing to delays is the way contracts are awarded. They go <br>to the lowest bidder. But Professor Moavenzedah says the low bids are <br>often unrealistic.<p>FRED MOAVENZEDAH: These contractors reduce the cost to bare bone in <br>order to get the job so obviously you expect some delays or cost over <br>runs or complication in the future.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: Like going out of business. That happened with the <br>contractor paving Mass Ave. who was also working on two highway <br>overpasses on 128 and repaving Route 9. The highway department doesn&#39;t <br>see hiring the low bidder as a problem.<p>The state also doesn&#39;t give any incentive for work to be completed <br>early something John Pourbaix of Construction Industries says could <br>make projects go faster.<p>JOHN POURBAIX: Our industry would be delighted to see incentives. We <br>certainly have penalties. END CUT HERE<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: But Pourbaix says the contractors are seldom <br>penalized for delays because it&#39;s not their fault if they come across a <br>problem that wasn&#39;t in the design. On most projects, the state hires <br>one firm to design the project and another to build it. Commissioner <br>Paiewonsky wants more focus on the design.<p>LOUISA PAIEWONSKY: Often construction delays are caused years before in <br>the design process so we are doing an internal exercise looking at <br>whether we are investing enough in the design phase, whether we are <br>being comprehensives enough in the design scope.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: But what some construction industry experts say is <br>really holding back progress is the antiquated nature of the <br>road-building industry itself. Barry Patner is a construction lawyer in <br>New York City who wrote a forthcoming book on the industry. He says <br>that because construction companies are small and they don&#39;t have the <br>money to invest in new technologies.<p>BARRY PATNER: The construction industry amongst all industries in <br>America is the lowest spending industry in terms of IT spending for <br>technology and has the lowest per worker productivity of any industry <br>in the U.S.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: Such low worker output could mean millions of <br>wasted dollars in Massachusetts, which has a back log of a staggering <br>$8 billion dollars in maintenance projects. And it means more <br>frustrated drivers like these, who were trying to navigate their way <br>through Kenmore Square. The subway and bus stop reconstruction is ten <br>months behind schedule it&#39;s already taken longer to rebuild than it <br>took to construct the entire original subway line.<p>VOXPOP: #1 Construction is truly a pain.<br>#2 It&#39;s pretty much a shame there&#39;s are no bike lanes and there is all <br>this construction going on right before students move in you can&#39;t even <br>ride your car down it forget a bike.<br>#3 We&#39;re from out of town and the last time we were here it was the <br>same way and it was horrible.<p>MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: The highway department hopes its streamlining task <br>force will find ways to complete projects 10 to 20 percent faster.<p>For WBRU I&#39;m Monica Brady-MyerovGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-24546018411669424592007-06-06T16:12:00.000-07:002007-06-06T16:04:46.664-07:00Los Angeles Mango Mania<a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-mango6jun06,1,4686502.story?">http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-mango6jun06,1,4686502.story?</a><p>coll=la-headlines-food<br> From the Los Angeles Times<p>COOKING<br>Mango mania<br>Direct from India, the luscious fruit makes its Southern California <br>debut. Oh, the crowds! Oh, the sticker shock!<br> By Shuji Sakai<br> Special to The Times<p> June 6, 2007<p> IT may be the most highly anticipated produce debut ever: Mangoes from <br>India, banned from importation until the U.S. and India reached a trade <br>agreement last year, have finally hit stores in Southern California.<p>Why all the excitement?<p>The mango, in India, is revered for its flavor and texture. &quot;It&#39;s <br>luscious, it&#39;s satiny, it&#39;s smooth and velvety, and has the most <br>elegant mixture of sweet with a little sour that you can possibly hope <br>to find,&quot; says Madhur Jaffrey, author of &quot;Climbing the Mango Trees: A <br>Memoir of a Childhood in India&quot; and other Indian cookbooks.<p>Though hundreds of mango varieties are grown in India, only three — <br>Alphonso, Kesar and Banganpalli — will be available in the U.S. this <br>season. Alphonsos and Kesars were the first to arrive.<p>Alphonsos, smallish and golden-yellow, are amazingly sweet and <br>succulent, with floral aromas and a creamy, fiber-free texture. Los <br>Angeles-based produce wholesaler Melissa&#39;s received a shipment the <br>first week of May, says Robert S. Schueller, director of public <br>relations for the firm. Although Melissa&#39;s distributed them to <br>retailers in Texas, Pennsylvania and New York, L.A. retailers didn&#39;t <br>bite, Schueller says, thanks to their high price — they sell for $35 <br>for a case of 12.<p> &quot;We&#39;re at the peak of mango season,&quot; he says. &quot;You can buy a dozen <br>mangos of the Ataulfo variety for less than 10 bucks, so most retailers <br>look at the price and say, &#39;Oh, it&#39;s probably not worth it.&#39; In a <br>market where you can get two mangos for a dollar, and these are costing <br>$4 or $5 apiece, it depends on where your priorities are.&quot;<p>Mexican-grown Ataulfo mangos — the only fiberless variety besides the <br>Indian ones — are available nine months of the year, he says.<p>But the high price doesn&#39;t seem to be deterring Indian mango <br>aficionados. Devraj Kerai, owner of Pioneer Cash &amp; Carry, a grocery in <br>Artesia&#39;s Little India district, says he wanted to be the first to <br>carry Indian mangoes in the region. He received 110 cases of Kesars (12 <br>per case) on May 11, he says, and he sold out in three hours. (Since <br>then he has received three more shipments of Alphonsos and Kesars, <br>pre-selling them, with a waiting list.)<p> When I arrived at Pioneer that first day, there was a huge yellow and <br>orange banner that screamed, &quot;Indian Mangoes Now Available,&quot; and the <br>scene around the mango display was like a scrum. That&#39;s not surprising <br>to anyone who knows Indian culture.<p>&quot;Mangos are an essential part of every Indian&#39;s growing up,&quot; says <br>Jaffrey. &quot;Every party for graduations has mangoes, because that&#39;s also <br>the time of the mango. The minute someone graduates, mangoes are sent, <br>placed in a bucket of ice (the quickest way to cool a lot of them), and <br>everyone sits around in a celebratory mood.<p>&quot;At all our weddings, like a Jewish chuppa, we have a canopy, a mandap, <br>that the couple stands under. The canopy is made of mango leaves, the <br>most auspicious of leaves, and you are surrounded by their blessings.&quot;<p>Still, eyes popped when Pioneer customers learned how expensive the <br>mangoes were. A few snapped up cases, quickly ferrying them away. <br>Others took a more cautious approach. One couple bought a single fruit <br>for $3.50 and returned moments later to indulge in just one more. They <br>had eaten the first one behind the store and couldn&#39;t resist buying <br>another.<p>Besides the price issue, mango devotees should consider that all <br>Indian-grown mangoes exported to the U.S. are irradiated. The reason <br>for the long ban was that they can harbor a pest — the mango seed <br>weevil — but the weevil is killed with low levels of irradiation. <br>&quot;Irradiation is recognized as a safe and effective way of providing <br>insect quarantine treatment,&quot; says Christine Bruhn, an expert on <br>irradiation and director of the Center for Consumer Research at UC <br>Davis, but the procedure remains controversial.<p>In any case, I didn&#39;t let it bother me: I couldn&#39;t wait to taste one. <br>The Kesars, a bit larger than the Alphonsos, are still green when ripe, <br>with only a touch of yellowing, if any.<p>As I peeled the skin down the side of the fruit, a fabulous perfume <br>wafted up: lime blossom, citrus and spice. I filleted the two &quot;cheeks&quot; <br>away from the flat oval pit. The flesh was gorgeous, a beautiful, deep <br>saffron color. (&quot;Kesar&quot; means saffron in Hindi.) I sliced, and tasted.<p>The flesh was silky and ripe, with a texture almost like tofu. It was <br>amazingly sweet and deeply flavored, with funky tropical notes and a <br>touch of bright lime and a gorgeous finish. Not wanting to miss a bit, <br>I slurped the rest of the fruit over the sink.<p>Kesars will be available only through late June, and they&#39;re not easy <br>to find: The only stores carrying them in Southern California are a <br>number of Indian groceries; meanwhile, Melissa&#39;s is selling them online <br>($55 per case, plus shipping).<p>Banganpallis, grown in the south of India, are on their way says <br>Pioneer&#39;s Kerai; he expects to have them this week.<p>So are Indian mangoes worth the steep price tag? For Schueller, it&#39;s a <br>close call. His favorite, he says, is the green Keittmango, grown next <br>to the Salton Sea in the Coachella Valley; they&#39;ll come into season in <br>July. &quot;The Indian mangoes are just as good,&quot; he says, &quot;but the price is <br>so high.&quot;<p>But for me, it was the best $35 I&#39;ve spent all year.<p>--<p>food@latimes.com<p>--<p><br>A wide world of flavor, texture and color<p>Indian mango varieties<p>Though there are hundreds of mango varieties grown in India, only three <br>are available in the U.S.<p><br>Alphonso: Sweet, soft-fleshed and nearly fiberless, with golden yellow <br>skin that may be blushed with red, this variety is well known <br>throughout India. Harvested from March to June.<p>Kesar: Small to medium-size, it has a green skin that doesn&#39;t <br>necessarily change color when fully ripe. Check for ripeness with a <br>delicate squeeze. It takes its name from the Hindi word for saffron, <br>due to its spicy perfume and orange flesh. It is picked from May to <br>June in its northern home state of Gujarat.<p>Banganpalli: Large, oval, and golden yellow, with a distinct aroma. <br>Peeling its thin, smooth skin reveals a firm, meaty, fiberless, sweet <br>yellow flesh. Harvested in southern India from April to June.<p> --<p>Mango varieties widely available in the U.S.<p>Tommy Atkins: Growers favor this large, colorful variety (its &quot;blush&quot; <br>is mostly red) for good looks, a long shelf life and a fibrous flesh, <br>which helps it endure global transit. Comparing apples to mangoes, this <br>Red Delicious of the mango world has only fair flavor but is widely <br>available through most of the year.<p>Haden: A descendant of the Tommy Atkins, this yellow-orange to red <br>fruit is medium to large in size and known for its high sweetness and <br>moderate fiber. It&#39;s available October through June.<p>Kent: Large, with a greenish yellow skin and a bit of red blush, it has <br>rich sweetness and nearly no fiber. Available October through April <br>from South America.<p>Ataulfo: This small mango has a bright yellow skin and sweet, soft <br>buttery flesh, and very little seed fiber. It&#39;s sometimes called a <br>Manila or Mexican mango and is also sold under the brand name <br>Champagne. Available in the spring through early summer; now is peak <br>season.<p>Keitt: Harvested green before full maturity, this very large fruit, <br>developed in Florida, can be used for Asian green mango recipes. It can <br>also be left to ripen to orange-yellow, for full-on eat-out-of-hand <br>flavor. The season is May through September.<p> — Shuji SakaiGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-11091843549801851922007-06-01T14:00:00.000-07:002007-06-01T14:01:42.714-07:00Summer 2007 Brunch Menu<a href="http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1v4em/Toscaninis_Brunch.pdf">Here is the Summer 2007 Brunch Menu as a pdf!</a>Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-87604002348552718222007-05-06T08:30:00.000-07:002007-05-06T07:29:24.445-07:00Good things from the LA TimesThe LA Times is a big fat paper, about which someone once joked that <br>&quot;It seems to be edited with a shovel.&quot; True but the good stuff is very <br>good. The Food Section on Wednesday is wonderful and the revived West <br>Magazine is not as good as it once was but its better than an airline <br>magazine.<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm">http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm</a>-<p>neil18may06,1,3028767.story?coll=la-headlines-west<p>800 WORDS<br>Bomb Mots<br> Dan Neil<p> May 6, 2007<p> Richard &quot;Mack&quot; Machowicz speaks softly and carries a big laser-guided, <br>over-the-horizon, armor-penetrating stick. Machowicz is the host of <br>Discovery Channel&#39;s &quot;Future Weapons,&quot; a breathless hour of gun love in <br>which Mack—former Navy SEAL and a keen advocate of peace through <br>superior firepower—pulls the trigger on some of the most fearsome <br>hardware ever procured by the Pentagon.<p> In one episode, he ventilates the night with the fire-spitting 40mm <br>cannon aboard an AC-130 Spectre gunship. On another, Mack visits with <br>the men behind the Massive Ordinance Air Blast device (MOAB), a <br>21,000-pound, mushroom-cloud-forming super-bomb that is the largest <br>conventional weapon in the Air Force arsenal, thus earning it the <br>nickname Mother Of All Bombs.<p> It was the MOAB segment that stayed my remote-control hand. While I&#39;m <br>no authority on the laws of armed conflict, it seemed to me a weapon <br>with a lethal blast radius of 400 feet is a tad, well, indiscriminate. <br>Perhaps glorifying this pseudo-nuke was in some sense ethically <br>dubious.<p> &quot;You can&#39;t put it down to the weapon,&quot; says Machowicz when I reached <br>him by phone. &quot;Any weapon is unethical if used improperly.&quot; The MOAB <br>was designed primarily as a psychological weapon, Machowicz says. Also, <br>the MOAB provides an alternative to battlefield nukes. &quot;Not a good <br>alternative, but an alternative,&quot; he says. The show—promoted as part of <br>what Discovery calls its &quot;Manday&quot; lineup on Mondays—typically has four <br>segments, each featuring a high-tech weapon system and each, ideally, <br>ending in an incandescent gout of destruction that makes you ever so <br>glad you&#39;re not a jihadist in Warizistan. A season-one segment featured <br>the world&#39;s most powerful cluster bomb. Misplace your Jane&#39;s Defense <br>Weekly? That&#39;s the CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW), which can rain <br>down molten copper over 600,000 square feet. Another segment explored <br>ground-penetrating thermobaric weapons, which are an extremely <br>unpleasant variety of incinerating fuel-air explosive that can be used <br>to—if I may paraphrase President Bush—smoke them out of their holes.<p> Who is &quot;they&quot;? Well, who have you got?<p> &quot;The world is full of bad people, evil people,&quot; said Machowicz. <br>&quot;People who are fundamentally inconsiderate of their actions.&quot; Ah, <br>teenagers.<p> Cable TV has always had more than a whiff of cordite. Following <br>Clausewitz&#39;s maxim that all history is, at base, military history, the <br>History Channel offers a steady diet of armed conflict: &quot;Dogfights of <br>the Middle East,&quot; &quot;Man Moment Machine: Patton and the Desperate Tank <br>Attack,&quot; are a couple of current titles. In a charming confluence of <br>life and art, R. Lee Ermey—a former Marine drill instructor cast as the <br>martinet in &quot;Full Metal Jacket&quot;—hosts his own show of weapons past, <br>present and future, called &quot;Mail Call.&quot; If that&#39;s not enough gear, guns <br>and guts for you, flip to the Military Channel. They&#39;re always storming <br>the beaches of Normandy and Tarawa over there.<p> God knows I love to see things blow up. A proper gentleman&#39;s education <br>cannot be considered complete unless he has, at some point, shot a <br>watermelon with a high-powered rifle. But I have a major problem with a <br>lot of this programming, the first being its clinical and morally <br>vacant fascination in killing. You know that familiar wing-camera <br>footage of white-orange napalm blooming in the jungle canopy in <br>Vietnam? There are people under there. At the other end of every smart <br>bomb is some poor dumb bastard who is about to be blown to bits. When I <br>hear some narrator crow about America&#39;s precision bombing, I just <br>cringe. There is nothing precise about a 1,000-pound bomb.<p> I had a similar reaction to media coverage of the Defense Advanced <br>Research Projects Agency&#39;s Grand Challenge, DARPA&#39;s annual open <br>competition for auto- nomous ground vehicles. How many people <br>registered that this was a program to develop robotic weapons? Did <br>anybody even see &quot;The Terminator&quot;?<p> It&#39;s not about the necessity of armed conflict, or morality of a <br>particular weapon. All of that is, as they say in the military, above <br>my pay grade. It&#39;s about making glib entertainment out of mechanized <br>death. You couldn&#39;t blame a visitor from another country watching this <br>program and concluding that Americans have slipped into a nutty <br>late-Roman fascism.<p> Mack disagrees. The effect of this technology is, he says, to make <br>warfare less destructive, to limit collateral damage, to protect our <br>own forces, and in some cases—such as the Long Range Acoustic Device <br>(LRAD), a focused sound weapon—to find non-lethal means to achieve <br>military objectives. &quot;It&#39;s about how much responsibility you are trying <br>to take for the battlefield.&quot;<p> A whisper-voiced bulldog of a man with a head as smooth as an ROTC <br>drill team helmet, Mack seems like a decent sort of guy. I pressed him <br>as to whether he thought perhaps his show is just a televised front <br>porch for the military-industrial complex. He does, after all, have <br>some amazing access, and he never seems to have met a gold-plated <br>weapons system he doesn&#39;t like.<p> Good propaganda fools the people who see it. Great propaganda fools <br>the people who make it.<p><br>Copyright 2007 Los Angeles TimesGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-75314995447834671072007-03-31T22:05:00.000-07:002007-03-31T21:04:23.577-07:00From our English gardening columnist.Grow-your-own Viagra craze hits Britain&#39;s garden centres<br>By David Randall<br>The Independent<br>Published:&#160;01 April 2007<p> A chance discovery by a Berkshire allotment-holder that a plant widely <br>available in garden centres has the same effect on men as Viagra has <br>been confirmed by experts at one of the world&#39;s leading botanical <br>institutions.<p> The plant is winter-flowering heather, and botanists at the Royal <br>Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, many of them heather experts who have <br>recognised the source of its active ingredient, now expect it to be the <br>next must-have plant in British gardens. Demand is already high. <br>Nurseries and garden centres in some areas are having trouble finding <br>sufficient supplies as word spreads of the plant&#39;s unexpected <br>properties.<p>A spokesman for Wyevale Garden Centres, which has 106 UK branches, <br>said: &quot;At first, it was just a trickle of inquiries, but now stores are <br>virtually being besieged each weekend. We have had men buying dozens of <br>the plants and, at one store in Croydon, there were men old enough to <br>know better fighting over the last remaining trays.&quot;<p>The latest gardening craze was triggered by a discovery by a <br>55-year-old furniture restorer, Michael Ford, on his allotment. He was <br>always experimenting with drinks made from different plants and one day <br>he tried an infusion from his winter-flowering heather. He said: &quot;The <br>effect was almost immediate. I had to stay in my potting shed for an <br>hour or so before I could decently walk down the street.&quot;<p>He then contacted the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, famous for <br>their work with the heather family, to see if they could offer an <br>explanation. They could. Botanist Alan Bennell said: &quot;This first <br>surfaced when East European chemists reported finding a Viagra-type <br>chemical in the floral tissues of winter-flowering heaths. They were <br>able to isolate measurable amounts of material that is an analogue of <br>the active principle in Viagra.&quot;<p>Winter-flowering heather, he explained, belongs to the genus Erica, a <br>close relative of our own native heather. He said: &quot;As yet, the active <br>ingredient has not been found in these British forms, but it is proving <br>to be most concentrated in many of the widely available hybrids sold as <br>winter-flowering heather in garden centres. Particularly potent are <br>forms of Erica carnea, the Alpine heather, whose range extends into the <br>Balkans.<p>&quot;The work of these biochemists and physiologists - much of it disrupted <br>and lost during the ravages of war - is now coming to light.&quot;<p> From the limited amount of information available, it is suggested the <br>Viagra-analogue is best extracted by steeping the detached small <br>flowers in neat alcohol. An infusion of about 20g of flowers in 100ml <br>of fluid liberates the active principle. A quality full-strength vodka <br>(at least 40 per cent) is also effective. Mr Bennell added: &quot;There is <br>some confusion whether oral consumption or topical application is more <br>effective.&quot;<p>But not everyone is happy about this new discovery. One woman shopping <br>at a Wyvales in Dorking yesterday said: &quot;It&#39;s amazing. My husband has <br>never shown any interest in gardening before, but now he&#39;s out there <br>night and day fussing over his heathers. Frankly, I preferred it when <br>he left the garden to me and wasn&#39;t so frisky.&quot;Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-91525687452761057812007-02-28T17:19:00.001-08:002007-02-28T17:19:15.318-08:00Jeffrey Steingarten likes chocolate miceJeffrey Steingarten writes about food in Vogue. He knows more, and is <br>capable of learning more about most things than anyone might think <br>possible. His most famous book is a collection called The Man Who Ate <br>Everything. In the February issue of Vogue he says that the best <br>chocolate bonbons are made by L.A. Burdick. In fact he specifically <br>says that they are better than the ones made by the much more famous <br>and much more expensive Maison du Chocolate in Manhattan. Burdick&#39;s is <br>located in Walpole, N.H. and on Brattle Street. I still think that <br>their various hot chocolates are excessive. But this is a great <br>compliment.<p>Boston is suddenly full of good chocolate places. Every Thursday night <br>at Mariposa Bakery in Central Square, Taza Chocolate has a chocolate <br>cafe. The hours are from 730PM to 1130PM. Mariposa is at 424 Mass. <br>Ave. next to Economy Hardware. Taza also has a handsome website<br><a href="http://www.tazachocolate.com/">http://www.tazachocolate.com/</a><p>Some people say that the best chocolates are at Gary&#39;s, in Watertown. <br>Gary&#39;s is at 1076 Belmont St. and Watertown is full of unlikely sources <br>of great food.<p>Captain Sandy Francis of the Cambridge Fire Dept. opened Serene <br>Chocolate at 1105 Mass. Ave. His store is a half flight down from the <br>street and sells a great collection of domestic and imported <br>chocolates. He also sells Toscanini&#39;s ice creams.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-83223129103837399702007-01-25T11:15:00.001-08:002007-01-25T11:15:30.769-08:00The essential Cambridge political website.Cambridge is a big little town. Once I was told that it is the largest <br>city in the United States without a daily newspaper. To be sure <br>everybody reads the Globe but the Globe doesn&#39;t pay much attention to <br>Cambridge. Quincy has a five day a week paper. Cambridge&#39;s only daily <br>is the Harvard Crimson, and if you&#39;re interested in Cambridge life its <br>a good idea to read the Crimson. Its also a good idea to read Robert <br>Winters&#39; website, which is cleverly to be found at rwinters.com. <br>Winters ran for council once and spends the rest of the time teaching <br>math and writing about local politics. Famously he once said that &quot;it <br>is mathematically impossible for Central Square to become Harvard <br>Square so long as Harvard Square exists.&quot; This did not conclude the <br>endless argument about gentrification but it should have retired the <br>hysterical claim that Central Square was becoming Harvard Square.<p>This column also appeared in The Alewife, North Cambridge&#39;s excellent <br>weekly. The column might be read the way you&#39;d read Howie Carr.<p><br>Robert Windows<br><a href="http://rwinters.com/">http://rwinters.com/</a><p>January 09, 2007<p>Cambridge Ideas by Robert Winters<p>Fine Feathered Nests<p>Even before the year 2006 began, word leaked out from Cambridge city <br>councillors that a deal was in the works to grant some councillors <br>their own personal aides in exchange for their votes to make Ken Reeves <br>mayor. The plan at that time was for Reeves to appoint certain <br>councillors to chair several Council committees and to use this to <br>justify the supposed need for personal staff.<p>Robert Winters<p>Sure enough, when the committee appointments were made, new co-chairs <br>were created where there had been none, and the councillors appointed <br>by the mayor to chair some committees made no sense at all. Soon after, <br>each councillor was given the option of receiving a personal aide <br>courtesy of the newly anointed mayor.<p>By the end of the year, this city council had accomplished less than <br>any in the history of the city. At year&#39;s end, there were precisely <br>zero Council committee meetings scheduled and little for the <br>councillors to do.<p>In truth, 2006 was a year during which some councillors measured their <br>new offices, others measured their chances at getting elected to new <br>offices, and the rest measured how many more years of incumbency they <br>needed in order to max out their pensions.<p>It was a year to take care Number One, and no one did so with greater <br>extravagance than his royal highness, the mayor, Mr. Reeves. While all <br>other departments kept their budgets close to the levels of the <br>previous year, Reeves submitted a budget 54% higher than the previous <br>mayor. The main increase was the inclusion of personal &quot;research <br>assistants&quot; for each councillor - all paid out of the Mayor&#39;s budget to <br>complete the deal that made Reeves mayor.<p><br>It&#39;s important to understand several things about these &quot;research <br>assistants.&quot; First, they don&#39;t do any research. In fact, nobody knows <br>what they do other than free up time for councillors to seek <br>reelection. Second, they are, for the most part, affiliated with the <br>political campaigns of the incumbents - just like almost everyone who <br>works in the mayor&#39;s office. For this reason, their salaries are <br>effectively campaign contributions paid out of city tax revenue. Third, <br>since they&#39;re provided by the Mayor&#39;s Office, it&#39;s important that <br>councillors make nice to the Mayor if they want to get their personal <br>coat-holder, letter-answerer, and car-parker.<p>When the Mayor&#39;s Office budget was submitted last spring, only one <br>councillor, Craig Kelley, had the gonads to pull that budget to allow <br>discussion. Unfortunately, when it came time to ask questions, the new <br>councillor declared that the budget was going to pass anyway, so there <br>was no point in asking questions. Wrong, very wrong.<p>By the time December rolled around, we discovered that our wandering <br>mayor had not only used up his $20,500 annual travel budget in less <br>that half a year, but there was now an appropriation request for an <br>additional $19,750 for travel expenses. The appropriation passed <br>without discussion.<p>What this all means is that this Cambridge City Council unanimously <br>believes in the principle that &quot;you have to go along to get along.&quot;<p>In most political settings, there are two parties in play. No matter <br>what you call them, it&#39;s basically a balance between those who are in <br>control and those who would like to be in control. Those on the outside <br>play a vital role in requiring those in power to justify their actions <br>and expenditures. We really don&#39;t have that in City Hall any more. <br>Everyone&#39;s an insider. Last term, we could always count on David Maher <br>to point out the lack of garments on the king.<p>The only time anything is challenged now is when there is some <br>political gain to be had - all in the noble cause of incumbency <br>protection.<p>I&#39;ve been closely following local government in Cambridge for two <br>decades now and I&#39;ve never felt as little affinity with any group of <br>nine councillors as I do right now (with the sole exception of Michael <br>Sullivan who was recently elected as Middlesex County Clerk&#160; of <br>Courts). Most of them put their own self-interest well ahead of the <br>taxpayers&#39; interest. Half of them are focused more on their next job <br>than their current job.<p>Because Cambridge can always permit another large development project <br>to cover any added costs, this Council rarely has to be concerned about <br>any blowback from an unnecessary expense, especially the expense of <br>feathering their own nests.<p>What we could all use now are some good men and women who are willing <br>to run for local office and to challenge the incumbents. This can be a <br>daunting task. We don&#39;t usually get more than a few credible <br>challengers brave enough to give it a try. The campaign finance <br>reporting requirements are a pain (unless you fudge the numbers, like <br>the mayor), fundraising is awkward and time-consuming, and it&#39;s likely <br>that you&#39;ll catch some abuse from somewhere before it&#39;s all said and <br>done.<p>Any new candidate has to get up to speed on a lot of issues in order to <br>avoid embarrassment, but there are many people who will be happy to <br>lend you a hand. Candidacy is one of the best ways to learn about local <br>government. There&#39;s a better than even chance that you won&#39;t get <br>elected. Nonetheless, we could really use you. Think about it! The year <br>2007 could be a great year to clean house at City Hall.<p>There are now a lot of people in Cambridge who would love to oust some <br>incumbents. They would love nothing more than to have their choice of <br>credible hallengers to support and to give their Number 1 vote next <br>November. The School Committee race could also use some competition. If <br>you have loftier goals, there are also several Massachusetts House and <br>Senate seats that could use new occupants in 2008.<p>Asking someone to become a candidate for public office is a lot to ask. <br>Consider yourself asked.<p>January 09, 2007 in Robert Winters | PermalinkGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-71501481740193303122007-01-23T13:37:00.000-08:002007-01-23T13:38:03.438-08:00Mr.Tea@TheBigTableMark Mooradian is everyone&#39;s favorite vendor. He is positively <br>evangelical about tea. He will be discussing and demonstrating a wide <br>variety of teas at Toscanini&#39;s in Central Square. This is one of the <br>best ways to spend a chilly winter evening.<br>Tea Party<br>with Mark Mooradian<br>Mr. Tea@TheBigTable<br>899 Main St.<br>Central Square, Cambridge<br>We Ja 24 2007<br>5PM&gt;630PM<br>Green Tea ice cream.<br>Matte Lattes. Honey Cardamom Lattes.<br>Learn about tea : black tea, red tea, green tea, white tea,<br>oolong tea, frost tea, tissines. Sample tea and ask questions.<br>Mark will be introducing two new teas:<br>Armenian Mint Mate,<br>Pu Erh Ginger Licorice.<p>FREE.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-9810416200285541802007-01-20T15:22:00.001-08:002007-01-20T15:22:50.515-08:00Bob Lefsetz on the radio. For your own good.From:<br><a href="http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/">http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/</a><p>Howdy all,<p>Wow. What a shit week last week. I would blame it on that lull between <br>Christmas and the first releases of the new year. But, If you look at <br>the Billboard Top 200, there is not a bunch of stuff there to drive <br>anyone into the stores. Especially ours.<p>The coming 60 days have some releases that are dreams for us. All <br>independent. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bloc Party, The Shins and Arcade <br>Fire are all on deck and there is much excitement, yes even for <br>physical goods.<p>What concerns me and what I think is a root problem for our&#160; industry <br>is radio. As great as the new Shins record is (and it is great), you <br>can&#39;t hear it on any mainstream radio anywhere in most parts of the US. <br>Same with the other three titles. This is the new stuff that ought to <br>be promoted. All I get is Nickelback and Hinder mixed in with 15 year <br>old Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots. Not very exciting. Not knocking <br>the two current bands dominating radio because I know they have an <br>audience. I am just saying that radio has become this ultra dull <br>lifeless thing that I rarely turn on.<p>I can hear you now saying &quot;Don, you caveman, no one listens to the <br>radio. Everyone hears about new music on the internet&quot;. Well, that is <br>just not 100% true. A nice chunk of people hear about new music on the <br>internet (obviously). But frankly, many people are just too damn busy <br>to spend non-work time in front of their computers. Some are lucky <br>enough to get to stream KEXP at work but most are blocked.<p>As I have said before, I keep on top of everything by sticking my dial <br>on &quot;Left of Center&quot; on Sirius. In my opinion, there should be a station <br>like this in every market. For those who have not made the leap into <br>satellite radio. For those who get sun and don&#39;t live on the internet. <br>In other words, the majority of people out there. The people who would <br>be purchasing music but just can&#39;t get turned on.<p>My kids don&#39;t turn on their radio any more. It sucks too bad they say. <br>What is terrible is that no matter how many ways people have to get <br>turned on to new music these days, what they really need is a filter. <br>Unfortunately, the biggest filter out there, the one in every car on <br>the road, is blocking the best stuff from the air.<p>Coalition of Independent Music Stores Top 200 for Week Ending 01-14-07<p>&#160;1 BEATLES|LOVE&#160;&#160;&#160;<br>&#160;2 MAYER*JOHN|VILLAGE SESSION EP<br>&#160;3 MOS DEF|TRU3 MAGIC<br>&#160;4 WAITS*TOM|ORPHANS<br>&#160;5 TV ON THE RADIO|RETURN TO COOK<br>&#160;6 CALE/CLAPTON|ROAD TO ESCONDIDO<br>&#160;7 SPEKTOR*REGINA|BEGIN TO HOPE<br>&#160;8 CASE*NEKO|LIVE FROM AUSTIN TX<br>&#160;9 DECEMBERISTS|CRANE WIFE<br>&#160;10 NAS|HIP HOP IS DEAD<br>&#160;11 DYLAN*BOB|MODERN TIMES<br>&#160;12 AKON|KONVICTED<br>&#160;13 RICE*DAMIEN|9&#160;<br>&#160;14 NEWSOM*JOANNA|YS<br>&#160;15 BECK|INFORMATION<br>&#160;16 RACONTEURS|BROKEN BOY SOLDIERS<br>&#160;16 INCUBUS|LIGHT GRENADES<br>&#160;16 RED HOT CHILI P|STADIUM ARCADI<br>&#160;19 YOUNG*NEIL &amp; CR|LIVE AT THE FI<br>&#160;19 TIMBERLAKE*JUST|FUTURESEX/LOVE<br>&#160;21 JAY-Z|KINGDOM COME<br>&#160;22 SEXSMITH*RON|TIME BEING<br>&#160;22 MY CHEMICAL ROM|BLACK PARADE,T<br>&#160;22 LAMONTAGNE*RAY|TILL THE SUN TU<br>&#160;25 CLARK*GUY|WORKBENCH SONGS<br>&#160;25 DREAMGIRLS|SOUNDTRACK<br>&#160;25 YOUNG JEEZY|INSPIRATION: THUG<br>&#160;28 HOLD STEADY|BOYS &amp; GIRLS IN AM<br>&#160;29 MEDESKI/SCOFIEL|OUT LOUDER<br>&#160;29 RODRIGO Y GABRI|RODRIGO Y GABR<br>&#160;31 MAYER*JOHN|CONTINUUM<br>&#160;31 SHINY TOY GUNS|WE ARE PILOTS<br>&#160;33 EMINEM PRESENTS|EMINEM PRESENT<br>&#160;33 U2|U218 SINGLES<br>&#160;35 RAE*CORINNE BAI|CORINNE BAILEY<br>&#160;36 YORKE*THOM|ERASER<br>&#160;36 YO LA TENGO|I AM NOT AFRAID OF<br>&#160;36 MATISYAHU|NO PLACE TO BE<br>&#160;39 COLD WAR KIDS|ROBBERS &amp; COWARD<br>&#160;39 CAT POWER|GREATEST<br>&#160;39 STEFANI*GWEN|SWEET ESCAPE<br>&#160;42 THICKE*ROBIN|EVOLUTION OF ROBI<br>&#160;42 BAND OF HORSES|EVERYTHING ALL<br>&#160;42 BRAND NEW|DEVIL AND GOD ARE RA<br>&#160;42 WOLFMOTHER|WOLFMOTHER<br>&#160;46 SLOAN|NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT<br>&#160;46 SILVERSUN PICKU|CARNAVAS<br>&#160;46 SNOOP DOGG|BLUE CARPET TREATME<br>&#160;49 BLACK KEYS|MAGIC POTION<br>&#160;50 VINCENT*RHONDA|ALL AMERICAN BL<br>&#160;50 KNOPFLER/HARRIS|ALL THE ROADRU<br>&#160;52 DENNEN*BRETT|SO MUCH MORE<br>&#160;52 MCKENNITT*LOREE|ANCIENT MUSE<br>&#160;52 YUSUF (FORMERLY|AN OTHER CUP<br>&#160;55 GNARLS BARKLEY|ST. ELSEWHERE<br>&#160;55 KILLERS|SAM&#39;S TOWN<br>&#160;57 SNOW PATROL|EYES OPEN<br>&#160;57 BEYONCE|B&#39;DAY&#160;<br>&#160;59 GOV&#39;T MULE|MULE ON EASY STREET<br>&#160;59 SIMON*CARLY|INTO WHITE<br>&#160;61 HAINES*EMILY|KNIVES DON&#39;T HAVE<br>&#160;62 ROWAN*PETER|YOU WERE THERE FOR<br>&#160;63 NELSON*WILLIE|SONGBIRD<br>&#160;63 SWORD|AGE OF WINTERS<br>&#160;63 CASE*NEKO|FOX CONFESSOR BRINGS<br>&#160;66 MASTODON|BLOOD MOUNTAIN<br>&#160;66 KOOKS|INSIDE IN/INSIDE OUT<br>&#160;66 CLIPSE|HELL HATH NO FURY<br>&#160;66 WARD*M.|POST-WAR<br>&#160;70 BLIGE*MARY J.|REFLECTIONS: A R<br>&#160;70 LEGEND*JOHN|ONCE AGAIN<br>&#160;70 TUNSTALL*KT|EYE TO THE TELESCO<br>&#160;73 GRIZZLY BEAR|YELLOW HOUSE<br>&#160;73 ISIS|IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUTH<br>&#160;73 CITIZEN COPE|EVERY WAKING MOME<br>&#160;73 FURTADO*NELLY|LOOSE<br>&#160;77 MUTE MATH|MUTEMATH<br>&#160;78 BLACK ANGELS|PASSOVER<br>&#160;78 EVANESCENCE|OPEN DOOR<br>&#160;78 FRAY|HOW TO SAVE A LIFE<br>&#160;78 TRAIL OF DEAD|SO DIVIDED<br>&#160;82 GOMEZ|HOW WE OPERATE<br>&#160;82 GHOSTFACE KILLA|MORE FISH<br>&#160;82 PINK FLOYD|DARK SIDE OF THE MO<br>&#160;85 LEWIS*JENNY WIT|RABBIT FUR COA<br>&#160;85 STEVENS*SUFJAN|ILLINOIS<br>&#160;85 DEATH CAB FOR C|PLANS<br>&#160;85 TOOL|10000 DAYS<br>&#160;89 BIRDMAN &amp; LIL&#39; |LIKE FATHER LI<br>&#160;89 TENACIOUS D|PICK OF DESTINY<br>&#160;89 FOO FIGHTERS|SKIN AND BONES<br>&#160;92 DEFTONES|SATURDAY NIGHT WRIST<br>&#160;92 CASH*JOHNNY|AMERICAN V: HUNDRE<br>&#160;92 OLD CROW MEDICI|BIG IRON WORLD<br>&#160;92 PEYROUX*MADELEI|HALF THE PERFE<br>&#160;92 KNOPFLER/HARRIS|REAL LIVE ROAD<br>&#160;92 DIXIE CHICKS|TAKING THE LONG W<br>&#160;98 MCKEOWN*ERIN|SING YOU SINNERS<br>&#160;98 TAPES &#39;N TAPES|LOON<br>&#160;98 SCISSOR SISTERS|TA-DAH<br>&#160;98 BLUE OCTOBER|FOILED<br>&#160;98 FRANTI*MICHAEL |YELL FIRE!<br>&#160;98 KILLSWITCH ENGA|AS DAYLIGHT DI<br>&#160;98 VINCENT*RHONDA|RAGIN&#39; LIVE<br>&#160;98 30 SECONDS TO M|BEAUTIFUL LIEGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-5815405911746158122007-01-18T16:25:00.001-08:002007-01-18T16:25:11.165-08:00Winnie Yang's hungry life: http://thatswhatyouthink.wordpress.com/Winnie Yang is smarter than you and eats more than you and travels more <br>than you. Her blog is entertaining.<p>Gettin&#39; my art on in&#160;Berlin<br> Published November 30th, 2006 music , art , travel , food , <br>articles , winnie 1&#160;Comment<p>The local paper published an ever-so-timely article on the museum scene <br>in Germany&#39;s capital. I was there this past weekend and while I didn&#39;t <br>make a point of going to the Bode, I did discover two very, very cool <br>institutions that have made it onto my list of favorite museums of all <br>time.<p>7. J&#252;disches Museum - Berlin<br> 8. Hamburger Bahnhof<p>It&#39;s remarkable how much museums have changed in my (albeit short) <br>lifetime. Or maybe just in the past decade. I guess if you want to see <br>the old-school methodology for exhibit and information display, you <br>might go to the Egyptian Museum in Turin. But the J&#252;disches Museum <br>ranks right up there with the Terrorh&#225;za (admittedly also in theme) in <br>terms of innovative exhibits. The latter is probably more tactile or <br>interactive, but the former gives you all kinds of personal narrative <br>to make the exhibit (&quot;Home and Exile: Jewish Emigration from Germany <br>since 1933?) really hit home. I also like that they inundate you with <br>so much information, so much evidence of the difficulties, the <br>nightmares and tragedies that these emigrants had to deal with that you <br>emerge from the museum feeling you&#39;ve had the shit kicked out of you. <br>That&#39;s what museums should do to you.<p>The Hamburger Bahnhof is similar in the visceral sense, but I more <br>marvelled at the physical space and use of this former train station. <br>The Hamburger is one of many modern art museums in Berlin (I also went <br>to the Neue Nationalgalerie, which, while designed by architecture <br>demi-god Mies van der Rohe, has a very institutional (read: gym-like) <br>feel. I&#39;m not into the short screen-wall things they&#39;ve hung stuff on <br>on the main floor. Modern art needs telescoping, swooping spaces. Or at <br>least that&#39;s what I&#39;ve been cultivated to think anyway. Short walls = <br>short shrift.) They have some really great installations there right <br>now. Definitely a must-see.<p>This is the Altes Museum, which I didn&#39;t actually step inside, but I <br>like what they had to say out front.<p>Anyway, what I ate in Berlin:<p>Most of my time was spent in the Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, which are <br>very, very cool neighborhoods. Mitte/parts of the PB are sort of like <br>the Lower East Side/East Village/Williamsburg. In fact, much of Berlin <br>reminded me of Williamsburg. I&#39;ll even go so far as to claim that <br>Berlin IS the Williamsburg of Europe. Other parts of PB are almost like <br>the Upper East Side or St.-Germain-des-Pr&#233;s.<p>Just up the street from where I was staying is the famed W Imbiss that <br>was mentioned recently in the NYT piece on Berlin street food. I don&#39;t <br>know if Gordon W was actually ever there the two times I ate there, but <br>there were definitely plenty of ex-pats hanging around both behind and <br>in front of the counter. I had<p>the avocado-chipotle naan pizza. With sprouts and arugula, as you can <br>see. Naan is excellent at this place. Berlin is like NYC in terms of <br>food — you&#39;re not necessarily going to find anything spectacular that&#39;s <br>&#39;local&#39; per se, other than bratwurst and currywurst, but there are many <br>places that specialize in that sort of neo-continental student fare of, <br>like, carbohydrate + spreadable item (+ cheese when appropriate; + <br>greens when you&#39;re in an area riddled with hipsters or yuppies). <br>Basically variations on burritos, pizza, bagels, etc. Even better when <br>it comes with a mango lassi! W&#39;s are excellent.<p>A few blocks further north, I stumbled upon one of those little <br>boutique/coffeeshops that&#39;s so hot these days. Misses Marbles, this one <br>is called, and they have some delicious kirsch-streusel-torte:<p>and really nice, really expensive tote bags.<p>Berlin, you&#39;re A-OK. I&#39;ll be seeing you soon, you can bet on that.<p>Random notes:<br> I caught Donizetti&#39;s &quot;L&#39;elisir d&#39;amore&quot; at the Staatsoper, and it has <br>to be one of my favorite operas yet. Clever, funny and just plain fun. <br>I spent half the time trying to tease some kind of meaning out of the <br>German subtitles and understood maybe 5% of the Italian they were <br>singing in, but I still thoroughly enjoyed every minute. I think I&#39;ve <br>commented on this before, but in Europe, operagoers skew on the young <br>side.<p>A list I made after finally getting from Milan to Berlin:<br>Metropolitana di Milano<br>S/U-Bahn<br>Bad/infrequent signage<br>Well-designed signs everywhere, where they ought to be<br>Dirty<br>Pristine<br>Ticket machines from 1970s<br>New ticket machines<br>Inscrutable instructions for ticket purchase<br>Clear instructions in 8 languages<br>Where are the maps?<br>Maps everywhere<br>Where&#39;s the train official?<br>Train official very helpful and right where he should be<br>Where&#39;s the train?<br>Train ETAs electronically updated by the minuteGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-76427110139908021232007-01-17T15:30:00.000-08:002007-01-17T15:40:10.251-08:00From our observant Anthropology Correspondent: Underwhelmed at the ICA Member's PartyA month after the fact, so don’t file this under news.<br /><br />File under: Would Bostonians Dress Up For Their Own Funerals?<br /><br /><strong>The Location:</strong><br />The waterfront. The new Institute of Contemporary Art. <br />Wood. Glass. Water. At last, a destination-worthy new building in Boston. When I read that City Hall recoiled from the brick-free design I almost wept: WTF-weeping. I’d like to copyright that: WTFWping. <br /><br />Thank goodness for Kairos Shen at the Boston Redevelopment Authority who, according to The Globe helped “calm concerns in City Hall that the project was too adventurous architecturally for the city.”<br /><br />City Hall, left to their own stingy aesthetics, would allow Cleveland (Cleveland!) to architecturally lap us.<br /><br /><strong>The Event:</strong><br />The members’ reception for the first art museum in open in Boston in over 100 years. Boston’s Cultural Event of the Season (NOT the signing of Daisuke Matsuzaka). <br /><br /><strong>The Scene:</strong><br />Underwhelming (My opinion while in a good mood). <br />Pathetic (My opinion in a bad mood).<br />Let me be clear – this is a critique of the party scene, not the Diller Scofidio + Renfro building or the theater space (can’t WAIT to see a dance performance there), or the opening exhibit, uneven with a few pieces I loved, among them: Cornelia Parker’s <a href="http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/permanent-collection/artists/parker/">“Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson)”</a>, Chiho Aohsima’s hilarious lobby installation <a href="http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/aoshima/">“The Divine Gas”</a> , and a mesmerizing piece – don’t know title or artist – of a perception-altering, horizonless red void. <br /><br />The party was called for 7pm-midnight. My friend Cynthia and I arrived sometime after 9pm, to avoid the expected earlier crush. So we arrived, hungry, just before the halfway mark. All the savory food was gone. Bad planning. <br /><br />Only dessert remained. Dessert is overstating it. Let’s say, sugary snacks. Here’s what was served:<br />• Bowls of candy: m&ms, gummy Swedish fish, Skittles (I am not making this up)<br />• Chocolate-dipped marshmallows on wooden skewers. (?????!)<br />• Fancy pretzel logs dipped in chocolate and nuts (this was adding insult to injury because I’m allergic to nuts.)<br />• Maybe there were cookies. I can’t remember. I was so hungry I double-fisted the Skittles and m&ms and staggered off with one of my two allocated pink cocktails.<br /><br /><strong>Let’s recap: The Members’ Party. </strong><br />Members: People who on good faith bought memberships to a museum that had not yet opened, and which opened three months late (as of yet – they have not offered to extend our memberships). <br /><em>Swedish Fish??</em><br /><br /><strong>The Fashion, and Lack Thereof:</strong><br />I spent an hour getting dressed. I am not a fashion whore, but, Cultural Event of the Season. I felt obliged to represent. <br /><br />My outfit: Grey deconstructed skirt with subtle sideways fishtail; deep v-neck, snug, black, Victorian-style blouse; knee-high lace up black boots with instep buckle, AND rhinestone floral brooch at the waist with swagged chain linked up to large kilt pin. Vintage black handbag. Cascading curls. Very Dark Lipstick. <br /><br />Kind of Fabulous Punk Victorian. <br /><br />Most other female attendees’outfits:<br />Anne Taylor dresses<br />Black or navy velvet<br />And the uniform of thirty-something women: Short black skirts, knee-high black boots, topped with basic sweaters (!). In NYC, women wear this to the office.<br /><br />A few attendees, especially the gay men, were decked out. Also architects. Cynthia and I, resting our tired feet in the theater’s orange stadium seating, argued over the team loyalties of a handsome young man in a beautiful suit, fantastic two-toned shoes and a scarf (an accessory scarf, not an inclement weather scarf). Cynthia insisted gay, because of the scarf (we’re in BOSTON, after all). I disagreed. We decided to chat him up, purely for research’s sake. He was an architect, which I figured decided the issue (Not Necessarily Gay). Cynthia was not convinced. But I had more evidence: <br />1. He did not comment our on noticeably fabulous outfits.<br />2. I admired his shoes and he felt obliged to provide an excuse for why he was wearing such fantastic shoes.<br /><br />Definitely Not Gay.<br /><br />-- SariGus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-61691444735961551582007-01-12T20:23:00.001-08:002007-01-12T20:23:04.474-08:00Mr. TeaTea@TheBigTable<br>899 Main St.<br>Central Square, Cambridge<br>We Ja 24 2007<br>5PM&gt;630PM<p>On We Ja 24, at our store in Central Square, Mark Mooradian will talk <br>about tea and share old and new flavors.<br>Learn about tea : black tea, red tea, green tea, white tea, oolong <br>tea, frost tea, tissines. Tea is a vast world with a long history. <br>Mark is the Prince Henry the Navigator of this world. Mark sells tea <br>to all of Boston&#39;s best restaurants, Legal Sea Foods and places as far <br>away as Chez Panisse.<p>Mark will be introducing two new teas:<br>Armenian Mint Mate,<br>Pu Erh Ginger Licorice.<br>Its free.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-84341787860398520752007-01-11T14:18:00.001-08:002007-01-11T14:18:47.669-08:00No trans fats. Never had 'em. Never will.Starbucks announced that it is eliminating trans fats from its baked <br>goods. It might be better for Starbucks to eliminate baked goods.<p>Toscanini&#39;s gets baked goods from Toscanini&#39;s &amp; Sons and Petsi&#39;s <br>Bakery. Both are on Beacon Street, the strange street that runs out of <br>Inman Square and almost reaches Porter Square. Neither place has ever <br>used trans-fats. T&amp;Sons makes a fabulous vegan chocolate cupcake and I <br>also like Petsi&#39;s scones on the weekend.<p>Two years ago my sister and I went to the Fancy Foods Show in <br>Manhattan. Mimi was working for Tiny Trapeze, the confectionary <br>company that Whole Foods later purchased. The Fancy Foods show is a <br>great place for Foodies. There are entire aisles for countries like <br>France and Belgium and other aisles for regions like Tuscany. Most of <br>the food is delicious.<p>There is also a percentage of low-end junk food. This year the most <br>popular new items were barbeque sauces. Again. When you go to Fancy <br>Foods shows the most popular &quot;other&quot; items are either bizarre potato <br>chips or barbeque sauces. If you make a barbeque flavored potato chip <br>named after a geographic resort area like Cape May, Cape Cod, or Cape <br>Anne then you can come to every show.<p>The Tiny Trapeze booth was next to a sprawling setup for a commercial <br>bakery that supplied most of the Starbucks in the Northeast. Their <br>bakery was in The Bronx. The show opened on Friday. Thursday night <br>everyone set up their booths, but this guy was also taking the time to <br>slice up his samples. I asked him if it wasn&#39;t a little early to open <br>and divide all these baked goods. &quot;Oh no,&quot; he said, &quot;they&#39;ll last a <br>week under any circumstances.&quot; He was a cheerful sweet man but I <br>resolved never to eat anything at Starbucks.<p>Long ago Boston had Coffee Connection and Coffee Connection had a some <br>pretty good food to eat. They had a chocolate fudge brownie that was <br>outstanding. When Starbucks bought out Coffee Connecftion they began <br>to systemize their baked goods. Local bakeries like Bond and Burkhardt <br>would be hired to provide food for all the regional cafes. But things <br>went steadily downhill. I know some people like Starbucks&#39; little <br>cookies but everything else went out the window. After the Fancy Foods <br>show I knew that it was hopeless. You were never going to find a <br>chocolate croissant with a little extra chocolate inside. You would <br>find chocolate croissants that your family could store in their shelter <br>along with sixty gallons of water for each household member. Now <br>Starbucks sells sandwiches and salads and is moving into breakfast.<p>I think Starbucks does a number of things well. I don&#39;t care for the <br>coffee but one could argue about that. The food is a lost cause. I&#39;d <br>try to sell more books and records and videos. They do those things <br>reasonably well.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-1569093860095977452007-01-08T18:27:00.001-08:002007-01-08T18:27:46.271-08:00...and Yaphet Kotto as Q RileyThe Globe and Da Heral&#39; both reported an arrest made by Boston&#39;s new <br>police commissioner, and his driver. The both reported without comment <br>that the driver was named Q Riley. Where does this come from? Are <br>there other cops with wonderful new names? In France the government <br>approves the names of all children so you don&#39;t have any Moon Unit <br>Leotard&#39;s. Or is Riley the first Burmese cop in a city once dominated <br>by the Irish? Curious minds want to know.<p>&quot;For example, minutes after a 20-year-old Hyde Park man was fatally <br>shot Sunday near South Station, Davis was leaving the scene when he and <br>his driver spotted the Mercedes for which police had just broadcast an <br>alert. His driver, Q Riley, blocked the car and detained the driver <br>until officers arrived. Davis yesterday confirmed the incident, saying <br>he acted as Riley&#39;s backup.&quot;Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-90356138308134527322007-01-08T18:20:00.001-08:002007-01-08T18:20:12.034-08:00The best place to start a musical argument: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/I think that Bob Lefsetz wrote his own blurb. Doesn&#39;t John Updike <br>write his, too. This disinhibited blog is at its best when the author <br>is making coherent and surprising arguments about music, the music <br>industry, and the future of both. Its interesting when he&#39;s just <br>spritzing.<p>Who is Bob Lefsetz<p>Bob Lefsetz is the author of &quot;The Lefsetz Letter.&quot; Famous for being <br>beholden to no one and speaking the truth, Lefsetz addresses the issues <br>that are at the core of the music business: downloading, copy <br>protection, pricing and the music itself.<p>His intense brilliance captivates readers from Steven Tyler to Rick <br>Nielsen to Bryan Adams to Quincy Jones to EVERYBODY who&#39;s in the music <br>business.<p>Never boring, always entertaining, Bob&#39;s insights are fueled by his <br>stint as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary <br>Music&#39;s American division and consultancies to major labels.<p>&quot;The Lefsetz Letter&quot; has been publishing for the past 20 years. First <br>as hard copy, most recently as an email newsletter and now, for the <br>first time, in blog form.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-32843211963443314882007-01-06T15:18:00.000-08:002007-01-06T15:19:02.361-08:00http://brooklinejenny.blogspot.com/Jen Deaderick has always had her opinions. A few of them can be found <br>at her blog, &quot;Brookline is My Baby&quot; at the above url.<p>for Gus...<p>A list of my favorite movie endings (that I can think of at this late <br>hour):<p>Broadcast News: How many romance movies end with neither guy getting <br>the girl and everyone being kind of okay with it. It&#39;s a great <br>illustration of what it&#39;s like to look back in a crazy period of time <br>in a life. Excellent! And it doesn&#39;t come off as smarmy or <br>self-important. Because James L. Brooks is fabulous. (Mary Tyler Moore <br>Show: another great ending)<p>The Graduate:&#160;An obvious choice, but still great. I guess I like <br>ambiguous endings to romances. The more I see that movie the more I <br>identify with Mrs. Robinson (I&#39;m a year older than she was supposed to <br>be in the movie!). In the end, on the bus, the kids start to realize <br>what she already knows: life just goes on. There&#39;s all this excitement <br>sometimes, but then it just keeps going. Until, of course, it doesn&#39;t.&#160;<p>40 Year Old Virgin:&#160;I&#39;m not going to give it away, but it&#39;s great<p>Okay, Gus, see, this is why I don&#39;t do these things. I&#39;m already in the <br>realm of local paper puff piece, or one of those annoying Salon <br>articles. I type this stuff out, and it just seems too obvious.&#160;<p>Classic play ending: Hedda Gabler. Just see the thing. Really. Or read <br>it, at least. It&#39;s a stylized ending, but that doesn&#39;t make it any less <br>great.<p>Wouldn&#39;t this been more fun to talk about over some cool tea at the Big <br>Table? Why do I have to be another person with an opinion on line? <br>Okay, I&#39;ll keep going.<p>It Happened One Night&#160;has a great, satisfying, well-crafted ending. The <br>whole damn thing is so well written and well made that I don&#39;t know why <br>anyone thought another movie ever had to be made. But, again, life goes <br>on.<p>Of course,&#160;Some Like It Hot has a great ending, but who doesn&#39;t know <br>that?<p>I love the end of Mary Poppins. Let&#39;s go fly a kite! And why not???<p>The Apartment&#160;has a pretty good ending. Or is it a little cutesy? I&#39;m <br>not sure. It&#39;s feels like a bit of a bow to propriety, or to the need <br>for a happy ending. But it still has a little of the ambiguity that I <br>like. And, come on, it&#39;s Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. It does have <br>a really great, classic beginning, that movie. But that&#39;s another blog <br>entry.<p>Okay, I&#39;ve done my bit. I&#39;m going to bed. To hell with the lot of you!Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-82226521846754386572007-01-05T15:55:00.000-08:002007-01-05T15:54:27.497-08:00Harvard Square Keeps Getting Better and BetterHaven&#39;t you thought to yourself that what Harvard Square really needs <br>is another bank or two, maybe even a Citibank. Dreams can come true. <br>The building that once house HMV music will soon have a great big <br>Citibank. Thank God that people from Manhattan will be able to find <br>their favorite bank. Wainwright Bank will also share the ground floor <br>of the building, because as we all know banks like banks as neighbors. <br>EMS will move upstairs. Citibank is allegedly paying $150 per square <br>foot.<p>The Square keeps changing. Years ago it wasn&#39;t much different from <br>Cushing Square in Belmont. Then for a decade it was full of bookstores <br>and cafes and music stores. Paperback Booksmith was open 24 hours a <br>day and the Harvard Coop music department was headquarters for the <br>youth of New England. Wordsworth closed. The Architecture Book Store <br>above Cafe Pamplona is gone, as is the St. Thomas More bookstore, Asia <br>Books, Moore and McIntyre, Starr Bookstore, the Bookshelf on Church <br>St., Mandrake Books on Story Street, and the Harvard Law School Book <br>Annex. The music stores grew into two superstores -Tower and HMV- and <br>then imploded. Maybe The Coop music department will revive. Bailey&#39;s <br>closed, Brigham&#39;s closed, Uncle Ira&#39;s closed, Fred&#39;s Ice Cream closed <br>and so did the strange ice cream store on Mt. Auburn store where they <br>would use the microwave to make a frappe. Cellphone stores looked like <br>a good threat for a while but the one on Church St. and Brattle closed. <br> Allegedly Harvard Real Estate rented that space with the intention of <br>renting it to a cool food store like Dean &amp; DeLuca or an uncool food <br>store like Trader Joe&#39;s. If we move to a cashless society then all <br>these banks will disappear in a Darwinian ... plop. Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-82706921872936534582007-01-05T15:49:00.000-08:002007-01-05T15:48:18.394-08:00Its Not FreeIts not free. It costs $8. And its part of The Film Series With the <br>Strangest Name: Swiss Films with Rhythm. Accordion Tribe is playing <br>at the MFA on Th Ja 11 at 815PM. I saw it last year. The musicians <br>are charming obsessives. If you have traveled through Europe and been <br>amused by the persistence of the accordion this is the film for you. <br>Both the music and the cinematography are excellent.<p>Accordion Tribe by Stefan Schwietert (2004, 87 min.). Slovenian <br>American accordionist Guy Klusevic had a dream: to gather a group of <br>accordion greats—Maria Kalaniemi from Finland, Sweden&#39;s mad scientist <br>Lars Holmer, fellow Slovenian Bratco Babic, and the elfin Austrian Otto <br>Lechner— and make music together. Follow this unlikely quintet, the <br>Accordion Tribe, on tour through picturesque European <br>countrysides—practicing, performing, and attempting to return their <br>instrument to worldwide recognition as a powerhouse of emotions. In <br>English and German with English subtitles. This series is made <br>possible with assistance from Pro Helvetia–Swiss Arts Council, Swiss <br>Roots–Cultural Offshoots, and co-presented by the Consulate of <br>Switzerland, Boston. Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-4327329757562891962007-01-04T15:33:00.001-08:002007-01-04T15:33:47.413-08:00Other placesToscanini&#39;s is sold at most New England Whole Foods and both <br>Formaggio&#39;s. The Lyceum in Salem, Ma. uses our ice creams in their <br>desserts. If you want ice cream after leaving a show at The Middle <br>East you can get pints at Central Convenience. The ultimate <br>convenience is to order pints from Cinderella&#39;s pizza. They deliver in <br>Boston, Cambridge, Brookline and Somerville. (617) 576-0280. Soon <br>we&#39;ll be back in the MIT Student Center at LaVerde&#39;s. Taste of Newton <br>sells our ice cream and so do several City Convenience Stores. If you <br>like shellfish go to B&amp;G Oysters in the South End. They shuck our ice <br>cream.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-48855162341689147172007-01-04T15:27:00.001-08:002007-01-04T15:27:58.482-08:00Breakfast@TheBigTable resumes at 10AM on SaturdayThalia of Pennsylvania, our weekend breakfast chef has been working on <br>a new menu and will prepare things on Friday so that Saturday and <br>Sunday will begin happily.<p>New to the menu:<p>Corneal pancakes with breakfast sausage patties, Grade B Vermont syrup <br>and whipped butter<p>Brioche French Toast a la Orange Rhum Banana with whipped butter and <br>Grade B Vermont syrup<p>Irish Oatmeal with fresh apple slices, raising, raisins, and sugar in <br>the raw.<p>Most everything else is back, including the Crunchy Monsieur ham and <br>cheese sandwich, the creamy egg sandwich, the Applewood bacon and the <br>lemon curd.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-74184419381642266272007-01-02T17:49:00.001-08:002007-01-02T17:49:30.394-08:00College BasketballThere is an argument made during beer commercials that college <br>basketball is better than professional basketball because the games <br>mean more to the college players. Professional basketball players may <br>be more talented but they know they&#39;re going to be paid whatever <br>happens; they play too many games and the travel schedule is <br>unbelievable.<p>This is similar to my feelings about student concerts at the New <br>England Conservatory, Boston&#39;s Division 1 Music Power. The concerts <br>are free and NEC&#39;s Jordan Hall is a beautiful surprise that is one <br>block from Symphony Hall. A stairway takes you abruptly up from the <br>sidewalk, into a small lobby, another foyer and then into one of <br>Boston&#39;s best secret spaces. Jordan Hall looks like a concert hall in <br>the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the audience is casual but very <br>involved with the music.<p>On Su Ja 21 Karen Gomyo will play at 8PM. Her fall concert was <br>altogether amazing, ending with tango music written by Astor Piazzola. <br>This is free and that is the final charm of Jordan Hall. Maybe you&#39;d <br>hesitate to spend $20 to $50 for an unfamiliar event but to see someone <br>like Karen Gomyo for free is why you live in the city.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-64929615718998081952007-01-02T17:11:00.001-08:002007-01-02T17:11:22.414-08:00Cambridge Parking RulesMIT doesn&#39;t really start until Tu Fe 6, although some of the geniuses <br>are in town for Independent Activity Period. String theory, charm <br>school and very scientific courses about wine.<p>Harvard students come back for reading period and exams, then return <br>home. Classes resume on We Ja 31.<p>UMass. resumes classes on Ja 27.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343985171206481499.post-84914915145797711102007-01-02T16:56:00.001-08:002007-01-02T16:56:30.439-08:002006 Hype in ReviewBasic Instinct 2 did $5,000,000 in domestic grosses. Despite several <br>weeks of hype that plainly did not convince anyone to leave the <br>comforts of their home. Sharon Stone returns to her career as a <br>product shill in Europe and a favorite of fashion editors in the US.<p>Outkast&#39;s Idlewild was everywhere before it opened. No one went after <br>it opened. The domestic gross was $12,000,000.<p>Also Madonna didn&#39;t work out for Versace and Sex in the City star, and <br>Dee Snyder look-alike Sarah Jane Parker still doesn&#39;t work for The Gap.Gus The Ice Cream Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211339808160203676noreply@blogger.com